


Fulcrum

by imsfire



Series: Cassian week 2018 prompts [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Guilt, Shame, Spies and how they are made, my headcanon that Cassian was one of those who trained Leia, one former child soldier regretting training another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 08:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15433344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: "I’m a humble officer of an unofficial organisation.  You’re the future Queen of Alderaan.”The Princess wants to be more useful in the rebellion, and the rebellion will use her.  But it cannot be in the way she wishes.





	Fulcrum

**Author's Note:**

> For day three of Cassian Appreciation Week on tumblr: theme, Fulcrum.

“I don’t understand why I can’t go on.” The girl’s hand quivers and he sees the moment she stills the movement.  Her only tell is a faint flicker at the corner of her eyelids. 

Stars, she’s good.  Time was, she would have been fiddling with the short loose hairs at the back of her neck in frustration.

“I still have stuff I could learn,” she says.  The flare of anger in her voice is unmistakable; and that, he notices, she doesn’t discipline at all.  Princess Leia Organa is used to people seeing her angry.  Used to it helping her get what she wants.

She wants to learn.  She’s already learned so much.  He’s known her since she was a sharp-witted child of eleven.  Has watched her grow, study, push herself hard, and then harder still; watched her make errors and learn from them, get into fights she couldn’t win and learn from that, too.  Develop the stone-cold courage to keep going in spite of everything that goes against them, to tell lies and smile in the face of the enemy, year upon year. 

And so the rebellion is kept alive, passed on by him to yet another child who became a soldier.

“Is this something my father’s asked you to do?” she asks. “If he thinks I’m not up to it –“

“No.  I promise you.  The senator is immensely proud of you.”

“Then why?  I know I’ve kriffed some things up.  But I’ve analysed every mistake.  I’ve worked so hard to always find the lesson in failure!  Learn, accept, move on to the next fight, isn’t that it?” Leia’s fingers quiver and he knows she’s fighting the urge to clench her fists. “I’m young, I’m a quick study, I can fight, I’m fit!  When you were my age you’d been a field agent, you’d done deep cover work for years!  You were already training others!”

It’s hard not to smile, with pain at what he’s done to her, helped to do to her, and with pride at the superb student railing to be allowed to use her skills.  He’s probably frowning with the effort of hiding his feelings; his voice comes out harsh, that he wishes could have been warm with affection, and soft with shame.  “Are you competing with me, Princess?”

She swallows her first answer.  Sighs.  She knows he can read her; he knows that she knows.  She says ruefully “Maybe.  Yes.  Maybe a little.  You know how I look up to you.”

“Look up to me?  I’m a humble officer of an unofficial organisation.  You’re the future Queen of Alderaan.”

Leia’s jaw tightens and she looks down; into, almost through, the hull.  Through space and hyperspace, he suddenly thinks, as if she can see the very threads of space-time itself.  She has always been strange that way sometimes.  She stares into the deep distance of nowhere and says “I’m more use to the rebellion in my public role than if I got on working with you in the background.  That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Most people, given orders they don’t agree with, will pull a face and obey because they must, and think no more about it afterwards.  She’s thought it through and seen the bigger picture.  As she always does. 

He says “Not _more_ use.  But a different kind of use.  Anyone with a sharp enough mind and the right training can do my work.  Only you – _only_ you – can do yours.”

“So that isn’t why you’ve been training me.  I must admit I’m sorry - I had hoped to take an active role, to be useful, but – I will be more use to you there, won’t I?  On Coruscant I’ll have influence, access to information, contacts, I can ask for guidance and mentorship as a neophyte in the senate, sound people out who would never dare to speak to – the senior Senator for Chandrila, for example.”

He nods. “It would be idiotic to put a resource of your potential into active field work, where you could be recognised and killed in a month for all your skills.”

He knows her, has helped to shape her, has seen and used the eagerness of youth in her, as once it was seen and used in him.  She sighs again, and her calm resignation shames him and makes him proud.

“Princess,” he says; because he wants, this once, to give her something, in return for everything she will have to give “Never think this is because you weren’t good enough for the work I do.  Your performance in training has been exemplary.  Your coding work is top quality, you have the mind of a strategist, even K-2 approves of your analytical skills.  Your performance in the torture-resistance training was remarkable, one of the highest scores I’ve seen.  It’s a skill I hope you never have to use, but if you do –“

“I understand.” But her eyes are still downcast.

“I’m possibly going beyond my remit here, but – Princess, if you had not been far too visible already – if you had not been who and what you are – I want you to know that you would have made an excellent field agent.  One of the best.”

She says “Really?” and looks up at him with huge eyes.  There’s a break in her voice, on that one word; a pulse of pleasure at hearing praise earned not through her status but from long years and hard work.

He remembers being like that.  Young, full of conviction, wanting desperately to be told you’re a good soldier.  So committed, and so young; not quite nineteen.  “Really,” he says. “If things had been different, I believe you would have been the next Fulcrum, when I am gone.”

The Princess blinks twice, total shock almost totally hidden, and then stands, and faces him.  She’s suddenly resolute, calmly self-possessed; but a smile sad as a ghost passes through her eyes.

She holds out her hand in formal farewell. “Thank you, Captain.”

Cassian touches her palm and watches her leave, and wonders if they will meet again.

It seems unlikely.


End file.
